


Prophecies, Worldkillers, and One Hell of a First Date

by SapphicScholar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Canon Typical Violence and Death, F/F, LIbrarian!Kara, Reign and some hand-wavey Harun-El science, a mummy AU in which there are no actual mummies, archaeologist!Cat, playing fast and loose with all the canons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28198593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: The door to the library’s main entrance flies open, crashing into a book cart left in front of it as a small blonde woman struts in. “You,” she says, pointing at Kara.“Me?”“Kara Danvers, foremost expert on Kryptonian history and a leading scholar of alien civilizations?”“Um, yes.”“Then, yes, you. I assume you’ve seen the news about Max Lord’s discovery and planned excavation?” Kara nods. “I want to beat Max there to do things right. And I need your help to do it.”Or a Supercat AU vaguely inspired by The Mummy (1999) only substitute in worldkillers for mummies
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Cat Grant
Comments: 20
Kudos: 128
Collections: Super Santa Femslash 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redfield5x5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfield5x5/gifts).



> Action-heavy fics aren't normally a genre I write a lot of, but I had so much fun writing this fic for you, Redfield5x5! I hope you enjoy!!

“We’ve got leftovers,” Devon calls from the other side of the checkout desk.

Kara pops her head around from behind the stacks where she’s been sorting through the recent returns. “Pizza?”

“Nah, sandwiches from that little deli that opened up down on Fourth.” He gestures behind him toward Tyler, who’s dragging in the food cart.

After a grunt of effort to get the cart through the side doorway with that damn sticky wheel, Tyler pulls up alongside the desk. “Sorry,” he sighs, “some of the first-years went hard with raiding the leftovers, but there should be enough for lunch here.”

Beaming, Kara makes her way to the cart and starts stacking sandwich halves on her plate. “You’re my favorite little PhDs in the making, you know that, right?”

“Pssh, you say that to anyone who brings you food.”

Kara lets out a gasp of mock offense, throwing her free hand over her chest. “How dare you imply my affections are so easily bought.”

“It’s alright,” Devon says with an easy grin, “you’re our favorite librarian.”

“And that”—Kara points at him with an already half-eaten Reuben—“is only because I know where to find all the coolest stuff in our archives.”

Not wanting to be left out—and yes, okay, maybe the rest of his cohort is right about the crush he’s had on Kara for a few years now—Tyler hoists himself up to sit on the edge of the circulation desk. “You _brought_ the university all of the coolest stuff in their archives.”

“Well…yes,” Kara admits, rubbing at the back of her neck. “It was just, um, family heirlooms.”

The party line is that Kara, the world’s leading expert on alien civilizations, comes from a long line of researchers and astronomers and astrobiologists who have bequeathed to her maps and books and artifacts that are now safely preserved in NCU’s archives.

The conspiracy theory that runs rampant through the undergrads is that Kara is a rogue archaeologist-spy—like Indiana Jones without all the colonizer bullshit—who stole them from a super-secret anti-alien government agency and is only hiding them at NCU until she can get a spaceship to return them.

The grad students, though, they know better. Well, actually most of them also think she stole a lot of these artifacts from the government, and she’s made jokes about it frequently enough to confirm their suspicions. But more importantly, they’re also the ones still hanging out in the archives after hours, quiet as church mice, buried under mountains of books collected for seminar papers and comps and dissertations. Which means they’ve seen a somewhat distracted Kara casually floating in the stacks, reshelving books and artifacts without ever dragging out the little ladder everyone else uses. They’ve watched her eat more sandwiches than even the hungriest and poorest of PhD students can manage…and then triple that amount. Tyler swears his first year at NCU he watched her lift an entire row of shelving to help free a mouse that had gotten trapped in a gap that was slightly too narrow for him (in part because Kara keeps them a bit too well fed, insisting that they’re probably hungry, too). All of which is to say: none of them are still laboring under the delusion that she’s human. They’re fairly certain the university administration doesn’t know, though, so it’s the best kept open secret at NCU. After all, she’s beloved for a reason, and they’ll be damned if their favorite librarian gets fired over something as silly as her home planet.

Devon interrupts Tyler’s stammering attempts at flirting with Kara about her family heirlooms, holding up his phone with a breaking news alert. “Hey, did you see that Max Lord’s teaming up with LuthorCorp? Says they’ve developed some scanner that can detect traces of materials not found on Earth and discovered some massive site out in the desert.”

Kara’s brow furrows deeply. “I had…heard something of the partnership.”

She’s quiet then, which is already enough of a red flag.

“Yeah?”

The muscles in her jaw work beneath her skin as she grits her teeth and nods. “They approached me last month, demanding to see certain archival materials. Followed none of the proper protocols,” she huffs. “Ignored everything I tried to tell them, too. You say they found something?”

Devon nods and hands over his phone. “If you want to read.”

Kara’s done reading the article in seconds, and Devon and Tyler exchange sly glances. “They’re just—they’re going to just—to dig it up!” she splutters, eyes wide. “They were asking me… It’s a _religious_ site, not something to just _dig up_ , all because they think they can make a small fortune.”

“Wait, they told you about it?” Tyle cuts in.

“No. Not quite.” She runs a shaky hand through her hair and lets out a slow exhale. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you about this.”

“Why not?”

Kara freezes. “Librarian-researcher confidentiality?”

Devon arches an eyebrow. “My husband’s a lawyer and lets more slip about his cases than you do. Spill.”

“Well that’s just unethical. My mother would never have…” Trailing off, Kara shakes her head. “They were asking for some old records about Yuda Kal.”

Before Devon can ask what that is, the door to the library’s main entrance flies open, crashing into a book cart left in front of it as a small blonde woman struts in. “You,” she says, pointing at Kara.

“Me?”

“Kara Danvers, foremost expert on Kryptonian history and a leading scholar of alien civilizations?”

“Um, yes.”

“Then, yes, you.”

“What, uh, what can I help you with?” She pushes up her glasses and stands a little taller.

“We need to talk…privately.” The woman’s gaze flicks over to Devon and Tyler, lingering for a few long seconds on Tyler’s fingers, now coated in a dusting of sugar from one of the cookies. “Perhaps somewhere without crumbs.”

Kara crosses her arms over her chest. “You’ll find that there are no crumbs near the actual collections.”

The woman lets out a frustrated sigh, tapping one foot impatiently.

“I have an office?”

“It’ll have to do.”

Once they’re back in her office, Kara quickly clears off the chairs, stacking books and papers along the edge of her desk before gesturing for the woman to sit.

“So, Ms. …”

“Grant. Cat Grant.”

“Oh!” Kara bites back a surge of nerves. “You’re…oh wow. I didn’t even recognize you in the…you know, fancy clothes.”

Cat purses her lips. “Yes, well, we’re not exactly out on a dig now, are we?”

Kara shakes her head and tries not to think about how long she’d spent staring at footage of Cat Grant’s live reports over the years. Alex had teased Kara and called it her great gay awakening. No amount of Kara’s protests about sexuality “not working like that” on Krypton had mattered—especially not after she admitted to having a bit of crush on Cat.

“I assume you’ve seen the news about Max Lord’s discovery?”

“Just now.”

“But they’d already been to see you, hadn’t they?”

Kara feels a bit like she’s under investigation and tries to straighten her posture some. “They might have. Are you working with them?”

Cat lets out a snort of laughter. “There’s not enough money in the world.”

“Oh.” A beat. “Good.”

Cat’s lip curls up into a small, self-satisfied smile, and Kara feels her cheeks flush. “So we do have common ground.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve done my reading, had suspicions that there might be an important site out in the desert based on reports of a disturbance there long ago.”

Kara nods. The only records she’s seen of it are all written in the ancient glyphs of Urrika, the linguistic precursor to Kryptonese, and not even Max Lord’s best computers have been able to completely crack the language yet.

“He wants to charge in with a multi-million-dollar company backing him and drag whatever’s buried there up from the earth without any thought to the significance the site might hold to aliens here on earth or their ancestors.” Kara has to hold onto her chair to keep from leaning over and declaring her undying affection for Cat. The wood creaks beneath her fingertips. Cat lets out a little sniff and flips her hair over her shoulder. “And of course claim credit for being able to do in weeks what teams of investigative journalists and researchers and archaeologists haven’t been able to do over whole lifetimes of work.”

“So why are you here?”

“I want to beat Max there to do things right. And I need your help to do it.”


	2. Chapter 2

For as much work as Kara has done collecting otherworldly artifacts and ancient scrolls and religious tomes and bits of alien technology humans are too arrogant to recognize as being lifetimes ahead of their own, she’s never been on any kind of official dig. She’s followed hints and rumors picked up from alien networks. Scoured coordinates gleaned from maps—most of them rough attempts at projected landing sites that didn’t quite match where Kara ended up finding random remnants of launch pods and communication devices. And, yes, stolen a few things from government black ops teams like the DEO. But she assuages any potential guilt with the knowledge that she only steals the important things. Religious relics that were never meant to be touched by unconsecrated hands and certainly should never have been manhandled and broken down, then tossed into storage lockers. Alien weaponry that her Aunt Astra had warned her about when she regaled her with stories of wars fought across the galaxies. Family heirlooms that would leave other aliens vulnerable, their lineages and locations tracked for anyone able to translate the text.

But this? This is new.

She glances up at Cat again and tries to ignore how good she looks in the rugged boots and tactical pants and that white linen shirt unbuttoned just one button too low for Kara to be able to focus properly.

“Kara,” Cat snaps, waving a hand in front of Kara’s face.

And oh Rao, she’s done it again. Kara blinks up at Cat and tries to arrange her features into something innocent.

“Eyes up here.”

Kara’s cheeks burn, and she grimaces at herself. “What were you saying?”

“I was reminding you that one bottle of water isn’t nearly sufficient. Even if we can get close to the site by car, we’ll still be out in the desert for quite some time, and I won’t have you passing out on me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t, don’t worry!”

Cat rolls her eyes. “Typical millennial. Think the rules of nature won’t apply you.”

“What? No, that’s not—”

“Just pack enough water, Kiera.” Cat spins on her heels and turns back to her bag before Kara can even think to reply.

A few minutes later, though, a bag of proper supplies is dropped at her feet, and Kara smiles at Cat’s retreating figure.

\---

It isn’t until they’re nearly 30 miles into their drive that Kara ventures an attempt at conversation beyond basic pleasantries. “You know I, uh, I really loved your early reporting work—read it all through college.”

Cat merely hums in acknowledgment, but at least Kara isn’t being dismissed.

“So…how do you know where we’re going?”

“Max and I, we go back further than I’d care to acknowledge.” She taps her fingers on the steering wheel for a few quiet moments before adding, “I ran into him a week or so ago, heard him bragging all about what he’d found.” She shrugs, an attempt at nonchalance undercut by the smug smirk pulling up the corner of her mouth. “A few drinks and a fake room key were enough.”

Kara crinkles her nose and tries not to think about whatever history would let a sleaze like Max Lord believe he was actually being propositioned by a woman so far out of his league. “So he, um, told you where the site was?”

“More or less.”

Kara tilts her head and waits for Cat to elaborate.

Eventually Cat sighs and pulls a map out of her bag, handing it over to Kara. “Amazing what a bit of attention can get these days.”

“I’m assuming he didn’t just give this to you, though?”

“Considering the rumors I’ve heard about the acquisition protocol at your own archives, I don’t really think you’re in a position to judge.”

Kara stiffens. “What rumors have you heard?”

“Never you mind.” She pats Kara’s leg, fingers lingering for a few long moments, and Kara’s mind goes blank.

After minutes of staring studiously out the window, Kara feels self-possessed enough to venture conversation once more. “What do you want from this dig?”

“Knowledge? Answers? The ability to taunt Lois Lane for the next decade over the fact that I finally found what may well be the only proof on this planet of the ancient Juru people?”

“Okay. But Max—what’s in it for him? I don’t know how much you know about the Juru, but this is…it’s likely a religious site. An old temple to Yuda Kal, from what I’ve been able to translate.”

Cat’s eyes turn sharp, and she glances away from the long stretches of highway to stare at Kara. “A translation?”

“Oh, you know, we’re all venturing translations these days, aren’t we?”

“No. In fact, Max’s failures in that arena have been rather well-publicized. What aren’t you telling me?”

Kara tugs at the fabric of her shirt until she hears the faint crack of threads snapping. “Nothing. I…I dabble in languages. Linguistics. I’m not saying I can speak an ancient dialect from Krypton that even supercomputers haven’t figured out.” She laughs, but it comes out too high-pitched and slightly hysterical. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Cat repeats, sounding beyond skeptical.

“But really, what does Max get out of this? There’s academic value in finding remnants of what may be the first alien life to have reached Earth, but he’s never seemed particularly interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge.”

“Millions in funding from Luthor Corp? Enough to subsidize whatever project I’m sure is next on his agenda. What I want to know,” Cat ventures, “is why Lillian wants in.”

\---

As they get closer to the spot indicated on the map, Cat begins rattling off instructions. What to do (whatever Cat says). What not to do (mostly anything that Kara’s seen in action movies). What to touch (pretty much nothing). What not to touch (everything, basically).

“You know I’m not totally clueless,” Kara finally huffs.

“You tried to bring a single water bottle on a trip to the desert.”

“You said we’d be able to park close by! I figured, you know, we could go back if need be.”

“Oh yes, because I really want to keep trekking back to the car every time you get thirsty.”

Kara grumbles to herself and bites her tongue to keep from pointing out that, actually, the fact that they’ll be out in the bright sunlight for hours is going to leave her more energized than ever. She’s really quite excited about it. There’s nothing wrong with the library, and she loves her job and the students she gets to work with, but one hour out on the quad during lunch is nothing compared to whole days spent in the sunshine.

“Will you be okay to walk out to the site? In case Max has security stationed, I don’t need to draw their attention from miles away with ATVs.”

“That’s fine. It’s what? An hour’s walk?”

“Through the dirt and sand in the sun. Not exactly something the life of a librarian teaches you to do.”

Kara can’t help the snort. “Trust me, I won’t have issues keeping up.”

She can feel Cat’s gaze sweeping over her. “I suppose you do seem to…keep in shape.”

Kara feels the words and the gaze like a caress and tries to distract herself from the rush of warmth by staring out the window.

It isn’t much longer before they’re pulling over, Cat maneuvering the SUV through loose dirt until she’s far enough from the road to park safely. She grabs her own bag, throwing it over her shoulders, then holds out the backpack of supplies she’d put together for Kara. “Pace yourself. Sip your water. Let me know if you’re getting dizzy, and if you stop sweating at any point, don’t try to be a hero and power through.”

“Got it.” Kara’s only half-listening, though, already basking in the warm sunlight. With nothing but scrub and dirt and sand for miles, she feels more energized than she has in years. “This is so nice. Almost makes me jealous of your job.”

Cat snorts. “Tell that to the sunburn you’re probably getting on your face and shoulders. Did you even listen when I told you about the sunscreen?”

“Oh, um, yep. I put some on…in the bathroom. When we stopped for gas.”

Cat narrows her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything besides, “It’s your own funeral if you’re lying.”

They set off at an easy pace, and Kara dutifully sips at her water to keep Cat from yelling at her. As they walk, Kara asks Cat about some of her past digs, and Cat preens every time it becomes clear that Kara’s done her research.

It’s just as they’re getting into the good stuff—some stories about Cat’s famous feud with Lois Lane—that Kara spots a flashy SUV (well, she’s fairly certain there’s a more accurate descriptor, maybe some kind of military vehicle, but it’s close enough) in the distance, shimmering slightly in the heat radiating off the ground. She points it out to Cat, who fusses over her, muttering about “already seeing mirages,” and feeling her forehead and cheeks until Kara’s heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of her chest.

“You seem fine. Overly excitable, perhaps. Are you just seeing that cluster of cacti?”

“No! You’ll see.” She folds her arms over her chest and stomps ahead a few paces in the direction of the vehicle.

“Mm, I’m sure,” Cat mutters.

After another half-mile or so of walking, though, Cat’s forced to acknowledge that she _does_ see. “How did you possibly see that?”

“Uh…good vision? I eat lots of carrots.”

Cat doesn’t buy it for a second, but she keeps walking in that direction, her movements growing slightly more cautious, as if she’s expecting to be attacked at any moment.

“You okay?” Kara finally asks when Cat stops to pull a few things out of her bag—and Kara is fairly certain that’s more weaponry now slung across the tactical belt looped around Cat’s hips than Kara has in her whole bag. In fact, she’s pretty sure the closest she has to a weapon is the chisel in her dig kit. “Expecting trouble?”

“It’s Max. And if I know him, I know the type he’s hired to do the work.” She grimaces and fingers the handle of a knife sheathed in her belt. And Kara _really_ shouldn’t find that as attractive as she does. “Macho, sexist pigs who don’t think women belong in the profession. Careless at their sites, too, just in it for anything worth enough to make a small fortune. And they’ll happily do whatever it takes to keep their sites to themselves.”

“Um, should I have a weapon then?”

“Would you know how to use it?”

It’s a fair point, though it doesn’t seem _that_ hard. And it would probably be a better look to have her flailing about with a knife in a fight than for someone to realize that a single punch from her could knock anyone out cold—and that’s if she’s carefully moderating her strength.

“That’s what I thought.”

“You’re the one that brought me.”

“I’m not saying you’re without value, Kara.” Cat practically sighs her name. “You know more about alien civilizations and Krypton than I ever will, and once we’re actually digging, I’ll need you there to ensure we’re keeping proper records and preserving the things we might excavate. And, well, not disturbing anything we shouldn’t be, if you’re right about its being a religious site.”

“It’s not a question. I am right.”

Cat’s lips quirk up a little at that. “Confident. Not a bad look on you.”

By this point, they’re close enough to get a good glimpse at what Kara can now tell is some kind of armored vehicle. Cat mutters something unflattering about not parking that close to a dig site, and Kara is startled when she lowers her glasses only to find she can’t see into the vehicle. She hopes it’s just a coincidence that they’ve used lead-based paint.

“It doesn’t look like they’ve started to dig at least,” Cat says. “We might have to fend off a few—”

“Duck,” Kara yells, pulling Cat down to the ground beside her as a bullet whizzes through the air—far enough from them to be a warning shot, but too close for Kara’s comfort.

“What the—”

“Two men, both armed, coming towards us.”

“Follow my lead,” Cat growls, though she sounds shaken. She pulls herself up from the ground, arms held above her hand and weapons still around her waist. “Who are you?” she calls out.

“This is a private site.”

“Public land,” Cat mutters under her breath. Loud enough for them to hear, she yells, “I’m a friend of Max’s.”

“No exceptions.”

The men are only a few yards away now, weapons still raised, decked out in paramilitary gear.

“Didn’t think we’d be cuffing two pretty blondes, though,” one of them laughs. “Here I thought you might be a threat.”

“Well then why don’t you do what’s best for you,” Cat purrs, fluttering her eyelashes, “and let us go see the site?”

One of the two pauses like he’s considering it before advancing too quickly, a pair of handcuffs swinging from his fingers. “I don’t think so. But maybe we can have a bit of fun while we wait for—”

Cat spins around, kneeing him in the groin and grabbing his gun in the moment of surprise. He drops to the ground with a pained groan, and Cat knocks him out cold with the butt of his own gun.

“Cat!” Kara yells, already moving to tackle the other guard who’s charging at Cat. He’s on the ground, gun thrown far from his hands, before he’s even registered Kara’s movement.

“Cuff him,” Cat orders, tossing the pair of reinforced steel handcuffs that had been meant for her to Kara.

Kara does so dutifully, then watches as Cat pats him down, disarming him as she goes. And _Rao_ , he’s armed to the teeth.

“Well,” Cat says, once their two assailants are both cuffed and face-down in the sand. “Looks like you really do keep in shape.”

“Yep. Lots of…self-defense classes.”

“Whatever works.”

“What, uh, what do we do with them now?” Kara asks, ignoring the curses still being spit at her by the conscious one. A single hand on his back is plenty to keep him from moving, and she’s not particularly worried about the threat he poses without his guns and knives.

“I suppose we can drag them back to their car. Cuff them and leave them in the back until the next shift comes to relieve them.”

Under the guise of being worried about controlling him, Kara lets Cat take the conscious guard and walk him back to the vehicle, while Kara easily drags the unconscious one behind her, every so often feigning a grunt of effort.

Soon enough, they’re cuffed to the walls of the back with only water close enough for them to reach, and Cat and Kara are circling around the cordoned off area with trowels in hand. Cat frowns at the ground.

“Is something wrong?” Kara asks.

“Max told me they’d already found something, but this doesn’t look like…” She lets out a huff of annoyance and does another slow lap around the perimeter. “This isn’t what I’d expect to find.”

“Couldn’t Max have, you know, lied to impress you?”

“Maybe, but he wouldn’t go public with it. Not if failure was still a possibility.”

They’re pulled from their thoughts by a loud rumbling getting closer and closer.

“Well we knew the next shift of guards would show up eventually,” Cat sighs, pulling the gun from her belt and clicking off the safety as they wait.

Only it isn’t more guards who step out of the SUV. No, it’s Max Lord, flanked by a team of exactly the kind of bro-y archaeologists Cat described.

“Cat, you know you have my number. You don’t have to resort to these kinds of tactics to get my attention.”

Cat scoffs. “I’m afraid you’ve inhaled a few too many fumes in your lab, Max.” 

He brushes it off, though, and his eyes land on Kara. “And with the librarian, too? Here I thought you couldn’t be persuaded to leave your dusty little office.”

“Maybe not with you, but I think you’ll find I can be a bit more…” Cat pauses, running her fingers down Kara’s arm and leaving a trail of goosebumps in her wake. “Persuasive.” 

With a smirk firmly fixed on his face, Max strolls closer to them. “You steal my map and my librarian and think you’ll get away with stealing my site, too?”

“What do you want with it anyway?” Cat asks.

“Now you know I can’t just tell you. Where’s the fun in that?”

“Oh.” Cat purses her lips, then lets out a sigh of disappointment. “I guess Kara here was right. You really did miscalculate and find…dirt in a desert. I suppose I’ll leave you to your very expensive sandbox.”

“Are you really so desperate to see me fail, Cat?” He pulls an object from his bag, and Kara gasps quietly. “You’ll find nothing without the key.”

“Is that…” Kara’s voice is quiet, awed.

As Max walks closer and closer, the object in his hand grows brighter and brighter, and Kara feels as if the very sand and dirt beneath her feet have come alive, rumbling with the weight of something so much bigger.

Cat’s eyes widen, though she quickly smothers the expression into one of bored disdain. “That’s all? A whole lot of show and buildup for something all too unimpressive?” She arches an eyebrow and lets her eyes trail up and down Max’s body. “Reminds me of something… Or should I say someone?”

“Just you wait.” The calm façade hasn’t quite cracked, but Kara can practically feel the tension radiating off of him.

Kara speaks up before she can think better of it. “You haven’t figured out how to activate it.”

His eyes light up as they land on her. “I told Lillian you’d be useful.”

“She’s not a tool for you to use then ignore. Maybe if you’d tried listening to her warnings, she’d actually have come with you.”

“I’m listening now, aren’t I?” He turns to Kara. “Why don’t you tell me how to activate it, and in exchange, I’ll let you and Cat stay for the dig.”

Cat and Kara exchange a brief look and nod, then Kara reaches out a hand. “I think…it’s old Kryptonian technology, if I’m not mistaken. Crystals. They store information, like a…USB sort of. But this looks different. Older.”

“How much older?” Cat asks, and Kara can practically see her running through calculations in her head, trying to figure out what kind of story this would be. “Old enough to be from the site of Krypton’s first contact with Earth, or is this something different?”

Kara can’t help a fond smile. “Sometimes it’s really obvious that you started out as a reporter.” Before Cat can get defensive, she shrugs. “You don’t just want to know how it works, you know? You’re in it for everything else you can learn, too.”

“Some of us still want to know how it works, and if you want to sit around and find your facts to write some books a few dozen people will read, you’ll help me actually activate this key that could lead to something so much bigger.”

“Fine,” Kara huffs, reaching out a hand. “Just be careful. That’s probably a thousand years old.”

As soon as it touches Kara’s hand, though, the whole crystal glows brighter than ever, warming up where it touches her palm until the whole thing seems to be emanating heat and energy so potent that Kara staggers back.

“Back up!” she yells, before dropping to her knees and carefully rolling the crystal away from her in a vain attempt to break the contact.

Once it touches the ground, though, the rumbling increases to a shudder that seems to rock the whole earth, rending the ground beneath their feet as cracks branch out and splinter all around them. They look on in awe as spikes of rock jut out of the ground, arching and twining around one another, more and more and more of them shooting up until the armored SUVs are dwarfed by the structure that’s exploded from the earth.

Once the ground has stopped shaking, Max sends two of his men forward, pointing at the entrance that has opened up. “Clear the area, I want eyes in there now.”

It takes two burly men and their chisels to finally pry the door open a crack, and they’re both launched backwards with a surge of energy that knocks them unconscious.

Undeterred, Max sends two more of his men forward, and when they’re able to slip inside without being blasted back, he’s quick to follow after them with the last of his crew, Cat hot on their heels and yelling warnings at them about not touching anything.

Kara trails in behind everyone else, carefully making her way down the stairs, as she eyes the vast rocky caverns that seem to sprawl out in every direction. There are glowing red gems that she can already see Max eyeing, and steam pours from pockets of the cave. In the middle of the room is a raised dais with a Kryptonian glyph etched on its surface. Kara can’t place it, but it tickles at an old childhood memory—maybe some of the trips she’d taken to the ruins of Old Krypton. She’s fairly certain she recognizes elements of it from learning about Yuda Kal in her lessons and hearing the whispers about the Children of Juru who still gathered in secret, praying and practicing what some called witchcraft and most dismissed as nonsense while they waited for the fulfillment of some prophecy that had been foretold for centuries.

“Stop that,” Cat hisses over and over again, stalking through the caverns and slapping the wrists of over-eager men too focused on whatever payment they’ve been promised to care about the structural integrity of what they’ve uncovered.

It isn’t until one of them finds his hand burned, the skin scalded and bubbling everywhere it had made contact with one of the red gems, that they start to show a bit more caution.

The following hours proceed slowly, and Kara sticks by Cat’s side, listening to the offhand comments she makes about the work she’s doing and trying to follow her example. It’s not quite a usual dig, Cat is quick to explain, but she’s careful and thorough in her exploration of the cavernous underground structure, slowly making her way through tunnels and side rooms.

It’s in the fourth room that they find a book that has Kara rushing forward, only to be stopped by Cat’s panicked scream. Kara spins around just in time to see miniature versions of the rock spikes that had shot from the ground flying out of the wall. She doesn’t think before throwing herself at Cat and pinning her to the ground, keeping her covered until everything has stilled once more.

She can hear Cat’s heart racing, the gasping breaths that haven’t quite evened out yet.

“Are you okay?” Kara asks, trailing her hands down Cat’s sides and scanning her for any wounds.

“You! You stepped on a trigger and…and threw yourself in front of me. You could have been killed, you stupid…” Cat’s mouth opens and closes twice before she’s grabbing Kara’s shoulders and pulling her down into a hard kiss that leaves Kara reeling.

It’s over before can even properly kiss Cat back, and she lets herself be pushed off Cat, blinking dazedly up at the ceiling.

Cat sniffs and dusts herself off before standing up. “Next time be careful and follow my lead, no matter how many books are held out in front of you.”

\---

After a long fight over whether Max and his men can be trusted overnight, they agree that everyone will stay down there, no one quite willing to give up their claim and leave for the evening. Cat manages to barter for a bed roll that she says she and Kara can share, missing the way Kara trips over her own feet and crushes a small stalagmite as she stumbles at the mere idea of curling up beside Cat when she still hasn’t even processed whatever that kiss was.

A tentative peace is reached over a bottle of whiskey shared over a dinner of energy bars and dried fruit that has Kara missing the mini-fridge in her lab and the near-guarantee of daily leftovers thanks to some departmental event or other.

Cat grows looser with a few drinks, more teasing and freer with her touches as she leans into Kara’s side and lets her fingers rest on her thigh and does just about everything to make Kara feel like she’s half a breath away from spontaneously combusting.

And none of that compares to the moment when they have to get into their sleeping bag, knees knocking together until Kara turns on her side, holding her breath and hoping Cat attributes any lingering flush on her chest and neck to the red glow of the cave. She tries to feign sleep, at least until Cat murmurs, her breath tickling the nape of Kara’s neck, “You saved my life.”

“Yes.” It comes out far more solemn sounding than she had wanted it to.

“Why? You could have died.”

Kara shrugs. “I didn’t. I’m fine.”

“I swore I saw one hit you when you turned to me.”

“Well,” Kara hedges, “I’m fine, so clearly it missed.”

She shudders as Cat’s fingers are suddenly on her back, warm even through her shirt. Until suddenly they’re on skin, and Kara feels like she can’t get enough air.

“I don’t think it did, though,” Cat whispers, fingers trailing through the rip in the back of Kara’s shirt over the smooth, unblemished skin beneath.

“Cat.” It’s supposed to be a warning, but it comes out much too breathy to be anything but longing.

Cat’s whole hand is splayed across Kara’s back now, curling around her side. “Kara. Why did you think to save me?”

“Please,” Kara gasps. “Don’t ask.”

“Okay.” But then Cat’s fingers are pulling away, her whole body shifting back, making use of the few spare inches they have in the sleeping bag, and Kara wants to rewind, wants to find a way to fix whatever slight Cat thinks she’d felt.

“Hey.” Kara shuffles over to flip back onto her other side to face Cat, who looks one part thoughtful and one part closed off. “I saved you because you’re respectful of the sites you excavate. You’re not Max and his asshole crew. I saved you because you were one of the first reporters who took alien immigrants seriously as more than a flashy tabloid cover or some overblown threat to sell papers. And then you made a whole career of showing that”—she stumbles over her words for a moment—“that they have histories here, too. Can’t that be reason enough?”

Cat gives a little nod. “Goodnight, Kara.”

\---

Come morning, Kara is profoundly grateful she doesn’t need nearly so much sleep as humans do to function, having spent most of the night trying to lie perfectly still and let Cat rest while also overanalyzing every second of every interaction they’d had that day.

Cat, who’d managed several hours of sleep, is only half-alive to the world, practically snarling at one of the other archeologists for making a joke about women and their need to look perfect after Cat mentioned wanting a real bathroom with a proper shower after sleeping in a cave on what she deemed a rather shoddy bedroll.

That day, she and Kara are able to focus on exploring the main room, Max directing his men to explore the side rooms. As they circle the dais, Max shakes his head. “Won’t open. We tried everything. Maybe with power tools we could—”

“No!” Kara practically shouts. “You can’t do that! Why would you even try to open an altar?”

“Your altar has a seam in it,” Max points out, walking over and running his hand down a deep groove in the stone. “My money’s on this being a lid of some kind. And if you’ve gone to all the trouble of hiding it…well, there are only a few things valuable enough for that kind of investment.”

“Not everything is about money,” Kara huffs, crouching down to more closely inspect the altar once Max leaves them alone again. As she runs her fingers along the seam, though, a row of glyphs is briefly illuminated, lingering like shadows on the side of the stone.

“What was that?” Cat asks, her voice a hushed whisper, though Max lingers like he’d heard her anyway.

“It’s the same language as those scrolls. About Yuda Kal.”

“So the ancient Kryptonese that no one speaks? Or almost no one?”

“I…dabble,” Kara admits under her breath. Still, there are symbols she doesn’t recognize. “Something about a lock,” Kara says, her finger hovering above the glyphs. Cat kneels down beside her, watching as Kara’s brow furrows. “This might be…no, it couldn’t be.”

“What?”

“The text of the prophecy,” Kara breathes. She turns to Cat. “Yuda Kal. She was one of the earliest deities on Krypton. Goddess of Life. But then…she wasn’t. The records aren’t clear. The Juru worshiped her as the highest of the pantheon of gods, but by the time I—later, in Krypton’s history, I mean, they worshiped Rao alone, and she was known as the beast. Like your Lilith.” Kara takes a shuddering breath. “The Children of Juru still followed her. They said there was a prophecy, something they were still working toward.”

“And you think this is the prophecy?”

“Maybe?” Kara turns back to the script, which seems to be fading with every minute. “Something about a great being who would execute justice. They call this being something.” Kara’s fingers hover over one of the symbols. “I don’t recognize this one. Part of it…it looks like a distorted version of ‘world.’ The other half, I might have seen something like it before.” She closes her eyes and tries to think back. There are almost no surviving historical Kryptonian records this old, even on Krypton. “Oh! Oh no.”

“What?”

But then Max and his men are clattering into the room, eyes gleaming as they clamber up toward the dais.

“What do you think you’re—”

“Move aside, Cat.” Max steps forward, fitting the crystal into the deepest of the grooves, his lips curling up into a grin as it begins to glow again, sinking deeper into the stone and clicking into place.

“Worldkiller,” Kara whispers, her voice strained. “The worldkiller will rise and execute justice.”

Cat glances back, finds the fading glyphs now burning bright, pulsing with the same energy that now surrounds the crystal.

Wind rushes through the cavern, carrying cool, stale air untouched for centuries up to them, whipping around and around, a dull roar rising with it.

Cat’s hand finds Kara’s, clutching it closer.

The red light of the gems flickers and bounces off the walls.

The ground shudders and shakes beneath them, bits of rock crumbling from the walls and shattering on the cave floor all around them.

And out of it all comes a murmur that grows to a whisper, then a chant that sounds like it’s pulsing from the very walls of the cavern.

_Reign. Reign. Reign._

“Cat, we need to go. Now!” Kara tugs Cat forward, but the air feels sticky, thick with something. Kara wonders if it’s what the full weight of Earth’s gravity feels like—like tar, dragging her back down with every step.

For a moment, all goes black.

When the red glow returns, five cloaked figures surround their band of people.

_Reign. Reign. Reign._

“What do you want?” one of Max’s brasher men demands, stepping forward and reaching out, as if to uncloak the figure before him.

The figure lifts him easily, snapping his neck and dropping his crumpled, lifeless form back to the ground before he can make his move.

One of the figures walks forward up to the altar, where the light of the crystal is bright enough for Kara to make out what appears to be a woman—Kryptonian, perhaps, or Juru—beneath the hood.

“ _Reign awakens_ ,” the voice proclaims, and the ancient writing may be somewhat foreign to Kara, but the sound is so close, familiar, beating deep in her bones like the presence of a whole race of people Kara thought had been lost to her forever. “ _Your sisters stir now. Purity will arise. Pestilence will arise. And united beneath the standard of Reign, you shall burn this world of men to ash_.”

She looks up, eyes glowing red, and in an instant the others are moving.

Max and his men scatter, but they’re no match, the figures on them in an instant, never giving an inch.

Kara turns back in time to see the altar opening wide as a woman inside sits up and takes a gasping, shuddering inhale.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Italicized speech indicates that it's not spoken in English

Kara is hovering in the air between Cat and the woman—Reign, she supposes—before she can even think about what she’s doing. All she knows is that she needs to keep Cat safe.

Reign’s eyes glow red as she floats from her tomb, landing softly on the ground in front of Kara.

But she doesn’t attack. She reaches out instead, clasps Kara by the hand and draws her closer. “ _My sister. Now we stand united._ ”

“I…”

She’s saved the trouble of answering by the sound of screams rending the relative stillness that had descended around Kara and this woman—corpse? god? worldkiller?—before her.

They turn in unison to find Max swinging a knife at one of the hooded figures, driving her back with a hiss of pain. The blade is laced with glowing green veins that make Kara shudder. He shouldn’t have…but he’s working with Luthor Corp, and Kara’s followed the coverage from Metropolis, knows what it is that can bring her cousin to his knees, knows the name of the man who’d learned to manufacture it—a name whispered like a curse in certain corners, hailed as a hero in others.

Kara drops to the ground as the woman who’d opened the altar calls out, “ _Find your sisters. Unite them under your mantle, and Earth shall bow before you._ ” And with that, Reign is soaring up and out of the cavern.

Holding Cat behind her, Kara gazes out on the scene before her. Two of Max’s men are dead, necks snapped and bodies littering the floor. One of the hooded figures has fallen, too, a gash of red across her chest, blood seeping through her cloak, her face exposed only in death.

Max and the two men he’d kept with him since he’d arrived are equipped with glowing green knives, slashing out indiscriminately and driving the figures back.

Out of the corner of her eye, Kara catches sight of Jacob, one of the younger archaeologists—brash and overeager, but more willing to learn than the others—pressed to the wall by the woman who had raised Reign or awoken her—Kara’s still not sure. He’s gasping out his final breaths beneath a hand that could snap him in two.

Kara is in front of them in an instant, throwing the woman off of Jacob and motioning for him to run toward Cat.

“ _You_.”

“ _Me_ ,” Kara answers, the Kryptonese awkward and unpracticed after over a decade of never risking more than quiet murmurs to herself late at night in the library.

“ _Kara Zor-El_ ,” she rasps. “ _We foresaw your presence, Kryptonian. You fly too close to the sun. We have languished, waiting in pain for time beyond reason because of you, the Children of Light, who would dare forsake Yuda Kal. You cast out She who gave us life. But your pretty skin will soon be brittle scales in hellfire when the others awake and unite beneath the standard of Reign!_ ”

Before Kara can even think to respond, the woman lifts her and smashes her back against the wall.

“Kara!” Cat screams. “Save her,” she orders Max’s men.

Eventually two of them rush in swinging their glowing green knives, and Kara’s vision grays, her stomach churning as every cell in her body seems to scream in agony. The woman cries out as the blade catches her side, and Kara groans right along with her, her back scraping down the jagged rock wall as she’s suddenly released.

Kara can barely breathe, too much kryptonite much too close to her, and she’s only half-conscious when another body falls beside her, blood staining her shirt, and a kryptonite knife nicking her hip before it’s pulled back. The cut is shallow, but it burns—hurts in a way nothing on this Earth ever has—and it’s only Cat’s face, swimming into her vision, that keeps her from dragging herself up and out of this cavern forever.

“Cat,” she manages.

“We’re getting you out. We’ll get you help. I thought… But you…you’re bleeding. You’re hurt.”

“Gonna be fine.” The words slur together in a way that has Cat’s eyes widening, her lower lip pulled between her teeth. “Promise.”

Cat’s fingers stroke through her hair, and Kara can feel something sticky along her brow. Panicked, she raises a hand and pats at her face. She’s relieved to find it’s merely sweat and grime.

“Kyle’s going to drive us back to the car. You’re going to be okay.”

Fleetingly, Kara thinks that Cat must have sustained some kind of head injury herself to be talking about any additional time with Kyle as a relief.

“I’ll take you to the hospital, okay? Get you patched up.”

Kara tries to shake her head and groans in pain. “No. No hospital.”

After a moment, Cat nods. “Okay. We’ll make sure you’re okay.”

Some of the pain begins to recede, and Kara manages to raise her head, finds Max and most of his men dragging themselves up the stairs, glowing knives sheathed.

Her back still burns, and she can feel her torn skin sticking to her shirt and pulling painfully, but she’s able to take her first full breath in what feels like ages. Glancing around her, she surveys the damage. Three of Max’s men and four of the cloaked figures lie slain on the grown. Jacob sits propped against a wall, his arm bent awkwardly and cradled to his chest, and blood trickling down his temple.

“Is he…?”

“They’re taking him for medical care. He’ll be okay. Probably won’t be holding a shovel for a while, but he’ll make it.”

“Okay,” Kara whispers.

“Do you think you can stand to make it up the stairs?”

Kara nods, though she lets Cat take some of her weight when the room spins as she pulls herself up.

“I’ve got you,” Cat murmurs.

“I know. I trust you.”

Cat freezes for a moment before continuing on and up the stairs.

The drive to Cat’s car is largely silent, though Kara feels better and better the further they get from the kryptonite. She doesn’t risk asking Kyle to open the tinted windows to let sun in, but she eyes it longingly as they drive, the car hurdling across the terrain.

Kara’s never been more grateful for Kyle’s complete lack of chivalry when he simply leaves them at Cat’s SUV. While Cat goes to turn on the car and get the AC going, Kara tips her head back and basks in the rays of the sun still beaming high overhead.

“Come here,” Cat orders a moment later.

“What?”

“We have to clean those cuts. No telling what kind of germs might have been on those cave walls.”

“Cat, it’s fine. I appreciate it, but really, I’ll…I can heal—I mean, scab. Yeah.”

There’s a moment of silence before Cat lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Let’s say, for a thought experiment, that I didn’t see you float and speak fluent Kryptonian—”

“Kryptonese,” Kara corrects.

Cat purses her lips and arches a brow. “ _Kryptonese_. And that I didn’t watch a spike that should have impaled you crumble to dust after tearing through your shirt. Let’s pretend like I didn’t see all that, hmm?”

Kara swallows heavily and nods.

“Well even still, I’d say that I watched a knife laced with kryptonite catch your hip. And I know from following coverage of Superman that kryptonite comes from materials found on Krypton. Much like everything in that cavern seemed to be. So if you were to have, say, bits of that cave wall embedded in the open wounds on your back, I’d dare to venture that you’d want them out.” After a beat, she rolls her eyes and adds, “Because who knows what that kind of interplanetary infection would do to your clearly human body.”

Kara grimaces. “Right. It’s not that I don’t—it’s just I’ve never—there are things that aren’t…”

Cutting off the rambling attempt at apologies that don’t need to be given, Cat pops her trunk open and pulls out a well-stocked first aid kit. “We’ll take care of your back first. Can I take off the shirt?”

Kara nods, the movement jerky as she turns around.

She hisses as Cat pulls off the ruined shirt, the torn fabric sticking to her just-healing skin.

“I’m going to irrigate the cuts, flush out anything that might be caught in them.”

Kara nods, grateful for all the damn water they packed as Cat cleans her back. 

“This may burn a little,” Cat warns, and then she’s dabbing at cuts with what smells like hydrogen peroxide and leaves Kara wincing. She follows it up with Neosporin that she applies so very carefully, her fingers gentle and movements thorough. “Should I bother with bandages?”

“Uh, I think they should be fine soon,” Kara admits, turning around to hold Cat’s gaze. “Especially if you open the sunroof while we drive.”

Cat’s mouth quirks up the smallest bit as she nods. “Of course.” After a moment, her gaze flickers down to Kara’s hip. Unlike the scratches and deeper cuts on her back, this one doesn’t seem to be healing. “Is there any chance there’s kryptonite stuck in there?”

Kara shakes her head. “I don’t think so. I…” She takes a deep breath. Lets it out. “I couldn’t breathe around that, and my skin felt like it was on fire. This just…hurts. A regular amount for a cut.” After a beat, she adds, “I think.”

“So human,” Cat hums as she reaches for the water again, holding Kara’s ruined shirt below the cut on her hip to catch any excess. The cleaning process goes by quickly—much more so than it had for her back—and it feels like only moments have passed before Cat’s fingers are running along her skin and making Kara gasp for entirely different reasons, her muscles tightening underneath the featherlight touch and digging shallow divots into the side of Cat’s car.

“Oh,” Cat whispers. She clears her throat. “Well, I think you’re all patched up now.” She slowly drags her gaze up from Kara’s hip to her face, lingering at her lips. “Supergirl.”

Kara feels her whole face flush. “I’m not…I don’t do what he does.”

A soft thumb runs along her cheekbone. “Not what he does, no. Maybe not yet, maybe not ever.” Kara’s expression falls, but Cat cups her jaw, tilting her head back to hold her gaze. “But what did you say about my work last night? About showing the world that there’s a history here, centuries and centuries of culture behind some misguided fears? That matters, too. You matter, too, Kara.”

This time, Kara’s expecting the kiss, though she still shivers when Cat’s lips find her own. It’s soft and slow, and she keeps her eyes closed for a few long seconds after Cat pulls back, trying to hold onto the moment.

\---

After sitting out in the sun for a while and eating more takeout than Kara thinks Cat’s ever had in her house, Kara tugs on a pair of gloves and pulls out the book they’d brought back from the cavern. She carefully thumbs through the pages, skimming through lengthy passages of history about Yuda Kal and her priestesses. It’s interesting, and were she not terrified about whatever Reign is out doing at the moment, she’d be poring over every word. As it stands, she’s frustrated at how useless the information all seems. At least until she gets to the first mention of Rao, of threats to Yuda Kal and the emergence of the Children of Juru as a fringe movement, a living anachronism in the midst of an emerging Kryptonian society that valued science over everything and dismissed the witchcraft of the women in their temples as out of touch with progress and the new way of the world.

They speak of the prophecy more and more frequently then, of a plan to inaugurate the end of days on a new planet. Years and years of planning are recorded in vague detail. There is talk of something called the Harun-El that promises great power.

“I think I know what Lillian’s getting out of this,” Kara announces.

Putting down her glass of wine, Cat wanders over to Kara’s side, and Kara could kiss her for not even thinking about bringing a liquid near the ancient text. “What is it?”

“There’s this Kryptonian medal that I think a group of priestesses used to give Reign her powers. Unlike, well, me, she doesn’t only derive her powers from the sun. Which I guess makes sense, since Rao is the God of Light, and they wouldn’t want to rely on—anyway, that part doesn’t matter. Just, if this rock can be used to give someone superpowers and possibly sustain them for centuries…it seems like the kind of thing that Max and Lillian might want to get their hands on.”

Cat pinches the bridge of her nose and walks back to her wine to take a rather large swallow. “Yes. Yes, it does.” She paces back and forth in the living room, trying to connect the dots. “So were all of those people who appeared powered by it?”

Kara shakes her head. “I don’t think so. I think they were the women of the Children of Juru who banded together to give Reign those powers and get her to Earth, but they were here to guide her and her sisters.”

“Those are the worldkillers?”

A nod. “I think the one who raised Reign or woke her up or activated her…I don’t know exactly what it was, and the sources aren’t clear, but I think that was the high priestess, Jindah Kol Rozz. Without her, Reign likely won’t have as much clarity in her mission as she otherwise would have had, but one of the others is still out there looking for her.”

“And Reign is off looking for the sisters you mentioned in the car?”

Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, Kara tilts her head back and forth. “Maybe? I, uh, think she might only be looking for one.”

“Oh?”

“She called me sister. In the cavern.” Kara rushes to clarify, “I’m not a worldkiller! But she saw me flying and might have recognized that we were from the same planet, even if we were born centuries apart.”

“Well that’s good, right?”

“Maybe. At least until she finds out she was wrong.”

Cat nods slowly, coming back around the table and pulling up a chair next to Kara’s. “Is there anything in there about the sisters?”

“Not much yet. I think their names might be Purity and Pestilence. Or maybe those are just descriptors of what’s to come in this whole end of days prophecy? By the end, it’s a little closer to modern Kryptonese, but they’re referring to a lot of religious texts that we definitely weren’t taught in our lessons.”

“It’s still more than anyone else knows.”

“I guess. Tomorrow I’ll see if there’s any more information I can find in the archives, some one-off references to the worldkillers that I may have missed before, any information that might be out there about the Harun-El…”

“So long as you let yourself sleep a little first.” Cat pauses, tilting her head to the side and narrowing her eyes at Kara. “Do you need sleep?”

Kara shrugs. “Some. Not nearly so much.”

Cat lets out a little huff of annoyance. “Next you’re going to tell me you don’t get wrinkles either.”

“Well…”

“I loathe you.”

“Sorry.” (She didn’t sound particularly sorry.)

“How old are you anyway?”

“Oh, it’s kind of a long story.”

“Well I’ve got wine and time.”

Which is how they find themselves sitting on opposite ends of Cat’s couch, sipping wine and picking at a plate of cookies as Kara starts to share little bits and pieces of her history that she’d never told anyone besides Alex before. Sometime around 1, they drift off, legs entangled, the exhaustion of the past two days finally catching up with them.

What feels like only moments later, though, they’re jolted from sleep by the loud ring of Cat’s phone.

“It’s Max,” Cat says, her voice rough with sleep. “Hello?”

Kara watches as her expression shifts from a kind of sleepy annoyance to alarm in an instant. “What’s wrong?” she whispers.

Cat’s fumbling with the remote before she’s even off the phone, and she and Kara watch in horror as the news flashes coverage of a string of murders across National City: three of Max’s remaining men dead, the glyph from the cavern burned into the sides of their homes and apartment buildings. The newscasters are abuzz with speculation, and rumors of a serial killer loose in National City abound.

Even with her thoughts still disjointed, fragments of her dreams swirling together and mixing with reality, one thing remains clear to Kara. “Hide—we need to hide you.” She pulls Cat into her arms, cradling her against her chest as she looks wildly about.

“Kara,” Cat sighs. “You’re half-asleep and completely useless.”

“Hey!”

“What’s the grand plan? Go dump me in the dusty library basement and hope Reign doesn’t find me?”

“I mean…”

“ _No_.”

Kara finally lowers Cat back down to the couch, dropping to the cushion beside her as her fingers tap out a frantic rhythm against her thigh. “What about…oh! My cousin! His Fortress of Solitude—I could take you there.”

“Didn’t you say she was rather adamant about the whole hating Kryptonians as personality trait thing?”

“A little, yeah.”

“So let’s not leave me as bait in Superman’s famous lair.” After a moment, Cat adds, “Besides, I don’t like being cold.”

“It’s not _that_ bad.”

“You could’ve spent the whole day out in the desert with no water. I don’t think you get to decide.”

Kara lets out a snort of laughter. “My sister was fine in a good winter coat.” A beat. “And two pairs of thick pants.”

Cat hums. “There it is. Why did you have to take her there anyway?”

“Oh, she and my foster mom are xenobiologists, and there’s a kind of…artificial intelligence, I guess you’d call it. Kelex. Sometimes it’s been helpful, especially when they were trying to develop a vaccine for this really awful flu-thing that swept through alien communities all down the west coast a few years back.”

“Very handy.”

Kara nods. “Yeah, definitely. When I’ve run into blank spots in the archival record, sometimes I’ve gone up to see if Kelex can fill them in. A little less helpful there.”

“I assume you’ve already asked about this?”

“Yeah,” Kara sighs, dropping her head back to the couch. “We didn’t…Kryptonians didn’t think very highly of the Juru, and we were even worse when it came to the Children of Juru still among us. The records that we have are pretty minimal—I’ve gotten way more from references scattered throughout other planets’ histories, actually.”

“Ah.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes, both of them lost in their thoughts. Finally Kara cuts in, her voice quiet and quivering with restrained emotion: “If I can’t hide you, what do we do?”

“She’s clearly coming after those of us who were in that cavern. Which means we’re all targets. Perhaps not you, if she still believes you’re her sister. But Max, his remaining few men, and me—any one of us could be next.”

“Promise me you won’t put yourself in danger. Stay with me? I can protect you, keep her distracted at least if she comes for you.”

“I think… Unfortunately, I think we should really all stay together.” Pulling out her phone, Cat wrinkles her nose as she dials Max’s number.

Kara sits back and listens as Cat explains the situation, explains the threat they’re likely facing. She can hear Max’s loud laugh, the ‘ _and what are you and a librarian going to do that we can’t?_ ’ Cat doesn’t give Kara away, just mentions that Reign seemed to like her, might listen to her if given the chance.

Cat’s expression grows thunderous as Max goes on and on about the stores of kryptonite that will apparently keep him and his men safe. “Fine,” she practically snarls as she ends the call, tossing her phone down onto the cushion beside her. “He’s fine on his own.”

Kara reaches out and tangles her fingers with Cat’s, giving them a gentle squeeze. “You have me. I might not be a weapon designed to kill people from my planet, but I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know, Cat whispers.

After a moment of hesitation, Kara leans forward, her eyes fluttering closed as she presses a soft kiss to Cat’s lips. Then another. And another. Until they’re all blending together, and Kara can’t tell if her heart is racing from fear or adrenaline or need, but Cat’s in her arms and not letting go, and that’s all that matters.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Cat and Kara wake up to headlines about a spate of murders all across National City. Two women wanted for robbery. Four suspected murderers. Nearly a dozen people who were found with guns and drugs in their car trunks. The last three of Max’s men nearly go unnoticed in the list of the dead—at least to those who don’t know to look for them.

The massive glyph burned into the roof of Lord Technologies, though…that’s something everyone sees. Caught by a local news station’s morning traffic copter, the image goes viral within the hour as everyone in the city speculates about what it could mean. They know it’s connected to the murders, but the city seems split on whether Max is next or whether he’s somehow involved.

Max gets on the news, waves off any concern, insists that it’s not worth the time or energy of panicking.

The façade wears thin, though, and within a matter of hours he has called Cat back, allowed that she may have had a point—never conceding that she had been right, of course, but at least they can be certain it’s Max they’re talking to.

The three of them meet in a private conference room at Lord Technologies early that afternoon, and Max tells them his plan—some kind of kryptonite particulate dispersal mechanism that would make all of National City toxic to Kryptonians. Cat shoots the idea down: “What if we ever need Superman’s intervention? Would you sacrifice our future safety?” Max doesn’t seem particularly convinced, but he listens as Cat explains that Reign seemed to have identified Kara as a possible ally, might not attack her if she was the first one she saw.

Max wants to use Kara as bait—lure Reign in and then slaughter her with enough kryptonite that Kara feels dizzy just thinking about it.

Kara shakes her head. “No. No, don’t you see? She’s… This is all murder, but she’s operating under some kind of code of justice.”

“She’s executing them,” Max cuts in.

“I never said what she’s doing is _right_ ,” Kara huffs. “I just mean that if we’re all in her group of targets, she must think we’ve done something truly wrong. I don’t know if that was her grave or her temple or what, but we were all there, trespassing without seeking permission. And I know for a fact that some of your men were trying to steal things.”

“Ah, you’re going to blame men murdered in the middle of the night? With your work, I should have known you’d sympathize with the aliens.”

“Max,” Cat cuts in, her voice sharp and brooking no argument.

“What if…what if I could get her to listen to me? I could apologize, for us make sure anything stolen is returned.”

Cat nods along with Kara. “It won’t be enough to stop whatever idea she has about executing justice and bringing about the start of this prophecy, but it saves us for now, gives us time. And isn’t that what you want more than anything, Max? To save your own ass?”

Eventually, Max agrees, though neither Kara nor Cat is fully convinced of his loyalty to their plan. But he promises to give Kara a kryptonite sword sheathed in lead that Kara already knows she’ll be throwing as far away from her as she can manage while she waits for Reign on the roof of Lord Technologies that night.

\---

The night is unseasonably cold, and Kara’s breath fogs in front of her as she paces back and forth along the rooftop, narrowly avoiding the glyph that’s even bigger in person than it had seemed from the copter footage. She’s always preferred the sun, but coldness has never felt quite like this before—like it’s seeping into her veins and turning her to ice from the inside out.

She has to keep reminding herself that she’s doing this for Cat. For the innocent people of National City. People who deserve to live, not terrified of some…living, breathing superpowered weapon imbued with untold powers hellbent on executing justice on Earth. And _Rao_ , how is she possibly qualified to be the one standing between them and the worldkiller sent to bring them to their knees?

Sure, she’s honed her powers enough to break into government agencies and steal artifacts back from those who shouldn’t have them, but she’s spent most of her time on the planet tending to books and papers and panicked students. Ask her to help Reign write a paper or find some obscure reference to what happened in some minor battle fought across the galaxy centuries in the past (on a planet that doesn’t even record their history in centuries!), and she’d be golden. But the very real possibility that this conversation will devolve to blows has her terrified.

It doesn’t take long for Reign to arrive, and Kara rises into the air to meet her.

“ _Kara Zor-El_ ,” Reign announces in perfect Kryptonese that leaves Kara reeling. It’s been so long since she’s heard her name pronounced that way—the way her parents and friends and teachers once had in a life that some days she fears she’s slowly forgetting. Then what she has said sinks in. And _oh_ , if she already knows who Kara is, it means she’s found the last surviving priestess, means she knows that Kara is no sister of hers.

“ _Reign, I come in peace. I come to apologize._ ”

“ _I want none of your apologies, Kryptonian._ ”

“ _The people I was with, they—_ ”

“ _Those who dared to desecrate my sanctuary? Who would steal from the temple of Yuda Kal? You wish mercy for them?_ ”

Kara swallows heavily. “ _Please, I will ensure that anything they have stolen has been returned._ ”

“ _You don’t even know what’s been stolen_ ,” she snarls, surging forward and throwing Kara back to the roof.

Kara lets out a low groan, her back aching as she pulls herself back up to her feet, a small crater left behind her. “ _Then tell me. I’m here. I’m listening._ ”

“ _The man you’re protecting—he is not honest with you._ ”

Kara can feel her lip curling back. “ _He isn’t an ally. But he doesn’t deserve death either. No one does._ ”

“ _Criminals, all of them._ ” Reign’s eyes glow red, and she stalks toward Kara. “ _Tell me, Kara Zor-El, if all that was prophesied has come to pass. How different is my justice from that of your mother? Would you have these criminals instead condemned to eons of existence away from all they loved? Condemned to endless life in a world where time stands still?_ ” Kara wants to ask if that is what has been done to Reign herself, but Reign doesn’t wait for Kara to answer, lifting her into the air by the front of her shirt. “ _I didn’t think so._ ”

Reign moves to throw Kara back to the ground, but this time, Kara’s ready. Using the momentum, she soars back and into the sky, looping over Reign to loom behind her. “ _I can get back whatever it is Max took. I just need you to stop going after them. Stop killing people._ ”

“ _I’m dispensing justice_.”

“ _That’s not justice. You’re terrorizing people!_ ”

“ _What would you know of justice? I am from the time before fathoming._ ” Reign’s eyes glaze over. “ _I was created to cleanse the scourge and deliver the awakening. This world has sunken into chaos and sin as Krypton was prophesied to do. Too many have eluded judgment._ ”

“ _I won’t let you hurt them_ ,” Kara says, letting her eyes glow a fiery red.

“ _Stand down, Kryptonian._ ”

“ _I’m not going anywhere._ ”

“ _Then I shall start with you._ ” With that, Reign surges forward, hitting Kara hard—harder than she’s ever been hit. Her head is still reeling when Reign winds up and swings again, and Kara swears she feels her ribs fracture with the power behind it.

But she won’t go down, won’t leave Cat without a fighting chance. So Kara swings out with untrained kicks and punches. They don’t all land, but the ones that do seem to hurt her, and Kara charges forward with a single-minded determination to keep Cat safe.

Still, Reign is stronger, her powers enhanced by the Harun-El, and Kara eventually falters, falling back after a punishing blow to the head. She can feel blood trickling down her temple, and her mouth tastes of copper. Reign doesn’t relent, kicking out until Kara is on her knees, swaying and barely able to see straight.

“ _Please_ ,” Kara pleads. “ _Mercy, please_.”

And Kara swears she watches Reign’s eyes flicker from red to a deep brown, sees something like anguish etched into her features. “ _Raonya_ ,” she gasps.

“ _Who?_ ”

But Reign only staggers back from Kara, a hand grasping at her own chest before she kicks up and off into the night sky.


	5. Chapter 5

Kara is vaguely aware of people bustling around her.

She closes her eyes, and everything goes dark and quiet again.

 _Cat_ , she thinks to herself, waking up to the sound of a woman’s voice. She sounds close by.

When she comes to again, it’s to bright lights shining in her face. There’s pain, but not nearly so much as she expected.

“Kara. Kara, are you awake?”

Kara squints, craning her neck to try to see the person behind the voice. Because it couldn’t be… “Alex?”

“Hey.” Alex’s face swims into view, her cheeks streaked with tears. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“You’re here?”

“Your, uh, girlfriend called me. And don’t think we’re not gonna talk about this kind of mean Indiana Jones you found in your dusty old archives.”

“Cat? Is she here?”

Alex snorts. “She hasn’t left since we got you here last night. I’m pretty certain she’s threatening Max Lord within an inch of his life now. He’s already got a pretty nasty black eye, though.”

“She punched him?” Kara gasps, trying to wrap her head around it.

“Oh…no. That would be me.”

“What?”

“He was, uh, watching your confrontation with Reign on his security cameras and saw you flying. You’d just saved his life. _Someone_ needed to remind him how to show a bit of gratitude. And discretion.”

“And Cat?”

“I don’t know how much you remember from last night, but you were pretty dazed and hurt.” Kara nods, pleased when it doesn’t feel like her brain is too big for her skull. “You spat out a whole bunch of information before passing out on us. Apparently Reign told you that Max had stolen something and was hiding it from all of you.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“I think Cat figured out that it was the Harun-El. I don’t really know anything about the woman besides the massive crush you apparently _still_ have on her, but she seemed plenty capable of threatening him without me.”

A dopey grin pulling up the corners of her mouth, Kara lets her eyes flutter closed again. “Sounds like Cat.” Suddenly her eyes fly open again. “Wait. Where am I?”

“I brought you to my lab. I’d built that sunbed modeled on Kal-El’s just in case you ever got sick or hurt, and it seemed like the right time to speed up your healing.”

“Oh. Thanks. I feel a lot better.”

“Good. I still want you to spend at least all night in here. Tomorrow you can go sit out in the real sunlight, but—”

“But Reign,” Kara gasps, already trying to sit up and pull free of the various cords monitoring her vitals.

“No you don’t.” Alex pushes her back down into the bed easily. “You think you’re at your best right now?”

“I can’t just leave Cat. Or Max, I guess.”

“They’re here. I have no respect for Max, but he has a few ideas that might work, and I know far more about Kryptonian biology than he ever will.” She adds, “Don’t worry, it’ll stay that way. I can make modifications without explaining them to him. But I think…I think we have some ideas. We won’t let her hurt more people, okay?”

“She’s not…I don’t know that she’s choosing to.”

“Oh?”

Kara rubs at her face, grimacing at the feeling of dried blood matted in her hair. “She could have killed me. But she didn’t. And something—something happened. Like, her eyes turned brown, and she looked _scared_ , Alex. Like she didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Are you sure you didn’t just imagine that? You were really hurt, Kara.”

“No, I swear. And she said something. An old Kryptonian name. Uh, Ra-something. Ranya, maybe?”

“I’ll pass along the information to Cat when she comes back, but I want you to sleep, okay? Besides, I bet Cat would yell at you if she found out you were trying to get out of bed when you’re still not at 100 percent.”

The logic is too sound for Kara to argue with it, and she’s asleep again within minutes.

\---

The next day, Cat sits out in the sun with Kara while Alex and Max work together in the lab. According to Cat’s report, things are going well, and there’s only an 85 percent chance Alex kills him before they’ve come up with something to help stop Reign.

Although Alex has insisted that Kara cannot go sit inside a dark library when she’s meant to be healing, she did go and get Kara’s laptop for her. For hours, Kara pores over the scanned documents she’s slowly been digitizing over the years, looking for any references to Reign or Ranya. The closest she finds is some mention of a chosen woman whose pain would fuel her power in the “end of days,” which Kara assumes might be a reference to the prophecy.

“So this Ranya was a…lover?” Cat guesses.

“Maybe,” Kara answers with a shrug. “But I think she’s key to getting through to Reign.”

“If we can at all.”

“We can,” Kara insists. “I know what I saw. She spared my life, Cat, when she had no reason to.”

With a deep breath, Cat dips her head. “I believe you. It’s her I don’t trust.”

“I’ll show you.”

The hours still stretch on—frustrating as ever as more and more sources come up empty. Their first breakthrough comes in the form of Alex rushing out onto the lawn, a smile on her face. “I think we’ve got something!”

They listen as Alex explains what she and Max have been looking into. Apparently, in the short few days since their return, some secret LuthorCorp subsidiary has been researching the Harun-El—Alex swears she’ll find a way to put a stop to this, insists that she and Eliza have connections to ensure it stays out of the hands of those who would misuse it. They’d been trying to derive a serum from it to imbue humans with Kryptonian-levels of strength, but instead whatever compound they’d created seemed to target the Harun-El’s own molecules, destroying them and reversing any cellular changes they might have been able to catalyze.

“Do you think that could bring Reign back to herself?”

“Maybe,” Alex hedges. “If she’s under some kind of control that’s unrelated to the Harun-El, it might not break, but it should at least leave her with the powers of a regular Kryptonian, which would make it a fair fight.”

Kara nods slowly. “Are there any risks?”

Alex pulls her lower lip between her teeth, pausing before she answers. “If…if the Harun-El’s powers are the only thing still sustaining her life, then stripping them away…”

“She could die,” Kara fills in.

Alex nods.

Cat cuts in then, “How would we even get this serum to her.”

“We assume she’ll try to attack again tonight. We keep the three of you together so that we know where she’ll strike.” Cat darts a worried glance in Kara’s direction. “Max or the scientists at LuthorCorp apparently already had a number of hypodermic needles made of a very strong metal alloy cut through with a concentrated form of kryptonite. If you can catch her by surprise, the combination of your strength and the kryptonite should be enough to get it through her skin.” Catching sight of Kara’s worried expression, Alex steps forward, pulling Kara into her arms. “I know. I know.”

“What if it hurts her?” Kara whispers, her voice ragged.

“And what if she hurts you? I can’t live with that alternative, Kara.”

\---

That night, Kara and Cat wait together on the roof of Lord Technologies, Max and Alex in the lab down below to keep the reserves of kryptonite ready and on hand but far enough from Kara to avoid weakening her too much before the fight.

Kara grasps Cat’s hand in her own, practically vibrating as her eyes continuously scan the horizon. Cat gives Kara’s fingers a tight squeeze. “You’ve got this, Supergirl.”

“You don’t know that. And what if I…what if…”

“What if you succeed? Have you even given any thought to where you’ll take me for our next date? I took you to an ancient Kryptonian cavern hidden beneath the desert, so it’s really going to be hard to top.”

Kara lets out a snort of amusement. “It’s not a date if you didn’t call it one in advance.”

“Oh, I disagree. You couldn’t keep your eyes off of me. I planned an activity that catered to your interests. We even slept together.”

“Literally slept,” Kara interjects with a laugh.

“On a first date and all,” Cat continues without pause. “I’ll have you know, normally I make a woman woo me a little longer. But I suppose exceptions can be made for saving my life.”

“Maybe,” Kara repeats, rolling her eyes.

“So, what’ll that second date be?”

“I could just lean into the boring. Take you out to dinner. Bring you back to my place. Watch a movie. Maybe I’ll pull out some ancient artifacts to really impress you.”

“My, my, pulling out the big guns, aren’t you?”

A flash of movement in the distance grabs their attention, and Reign is on the roof in an instant, stalking toward them.

Remembering Alex’s reminders to act while Reign is still cocky and unafraid, her movements open, leaving parts of her exposed and vulnerable, Kara shoots forward, uncapping the needle midair and jabbing it through a layer of cloth and into Reign’s upper arm before she’s even figured out what’s happening.

Reign lets out a howl of pain, but she seems weakened enough that Kara is able to hold onto her, ensuring the last of the serum is injected.

“Kara!” Cat screams, and Kara’s caught unaware as the last of the high priestesses grabs her, throwing her away from Reign.

“ _What have you done?_ ”

“ _Selena,_ ” Reign gasps, finally tearing the needle from her skin and throwing it far away from her.

“ _Your mission. Remember your mission. You are here to execute justice._ ”

But Reign’s face twists in pain, and her eyes are back to their deep brown, no longer red and glazed over. “ _Raonya._ ”

Cat clasps Kara’s hand and helps her to her feet with Selena and Reign distracted.

 _“She is not important. Think of your mission, Reign. You must unite your sisters. Together you will purify this world for Yuda Kal, and she shall grant us new life._ ”

“ _My daughter_ ,” Reign sobs out, face crumpling as the tears come faster and faster. “ _You stole her from me. Turned me into a monster for your prophecy._ ”

“ _She made you weak_ ,” Selena hisses. “ _We saved you. We chose you to usher in the end of days. Your name will be known far and wide, and you will give glory to a world reborn under Yuda Kal._ ”

“ _And what of my choice?_ ”

“ _You do not choose to abandon your duty. And those who would try will be punished._ ” Selena stalks forward then, drawing a broken shard of one of the glowing kryptonite knives Max’s men had used from her cloak. Her hands tremble with its proximity, but Kara watches the way Reign shrinks back at her approach, closer and closer to the roof’s edge until she’s backed into the half-wall, the blade’s jagged edge resting on her neck.

“No!” Kara screams, surging forward and pushing through the pain and nausea to knock Selena aside.

Cat’s there in an instant, kicking the glowing shard away from a stunned and weakened Selena.

Desperate and afraid, Selena lunges for Cat, and Kara throws herself between them, swinging hard with her fists. Pain shoots through her hand, but she swears she feels bone breaking at the site of impact, too, and Selena groans and stumbles back.

But Reign is there waiting for her. “ _I will not live in fear of you again._ ” The jagged kryptonite blade sinks between Selena’s ribs, and she falls to the roof, gasping out her last breath.

Reign is on the ground beside her in a moment, her breath ragged and her cheeks stained with tears. She repeats something, quiet and low, over and over again, and Kara eventually makes out what sounds like a prayer of mourning.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” Kara whispers when the prayer finally gives way to silence.

Reign shakes her head. “ _For my daughter. My family._ ”

Turning to Cat, Kara quietly explains.

Cat nods in understanding. “She might not have to be alone,” Cat says. “You—you might understand that pain.”

“Thank you,” Reign says, and both Cat and Kara look up in surprise. “What? Your Earth languages are really quite simplistic.” A shrug. “The Harun-El may have helped.”

Kara can’t quite help that hint of laughter in her voice. “That makes things easier. There are a lot of things on this planet that are different, but if you’re not still trying to kill everyone, I think there are a lot of people who would be happy to help you…adjust. Grieve. Find a place for yourself.”

Reign nods solemnly. “I thank you for the offer, Kara Zor-El, but there are two others—my sisters, buried somewhere on your Earth. They will need me to understand, to stop them, help them.”

Cat glances at Kara, then back at Reign. “If you end up needing help, you’ve got an archaeologist, a researcher, and a scientist—a decent one, not the asshole we brought the first time.”

Kara grins at Cat. “So maybe a very exciting second date after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter and Tumblr @sapphicscholar


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